barely catching up

Oh, hi again, kids.

I know, I have been woefully neglecting my blogging responsibilities. Not for lack of material per se, because there are reviews, both bad and good, I could write, and various things that people other than I have been frothing at the mouth about on the internet that I could discuss, and philosophical conversations I've had that I could expand upon. But, y'know, I just cannot be bothered at this moment. So let's go, again, with "laziness" as an excuse. Works for me!

And in the spirit of laziness, I'm going to do what I always do when I don't actually feel like organizing my thoughts and writing something coherent: a random list of unconnected topics. Ahem.

1.) D shaved off his beard and moustache the other day, but left these long muttonchop-like sideburns curving onto his face. I was dying when I noticed. I was like, Why didn't you shave it all? What is up with the hipster facial hair? Sadly, I don't think you can carry off the whole hipster aesthetic if you aren't as skinny as a rail (like D was before the atypical antipsychotics) so this sideburn thing is a big fail in my opinion. But it is his face. No one needs their mom nagging them about their hairstyle.

2.) I just read about the nanotouch project by Microsoft, where they are attempting to circumvent the problem of people's "fat fingers" being too big for the ever-tinier buttons and touchpads on tech-y gear. The online article snarked about "giving fat people just another excuse to avoid the gym." Which pissed me off no end. First of all, I've got small hands and even I think that some of this miniaturization is at about its limit. You cannot keep making devices smaller and smaller ad infinitum and expect them to be usable. Secondly, "fat finger" syndrome has little to do with overall fatness in most people. My dad's fingers are each easily equal to two of mine, and he's been skinny-to-average his entire life. He's just got big hands. Thirdly, honestly? I disbelieve that "going to the gym" accounts for any more than 10 to 25 lbs of difference in most people. Take me, for example. If I engage in a normal amount, for me, of physical activity, I'll be at my certain set point. If I go through a period of complete inactivity, I might possibly gain 10 pounds over my set point. If I start working out a lot, a lot, a lot, I might go 10 or 15 pounds below my setpoint. It doesn't make *all that much* difference. If someone weighs 220 lbs, I don't think that going to the gym 3 or 6 times a week is going to make them 125. It might possibly make them 190. Maybe. (And I hardly think that would affect their finger size one way or the other.) So suck it, online columnist, with your cheap fat jokes. And blame *poor freaking design*, not OMG THE OBESITY CRISIS, for the reason people have trouble with their touch screens.

3.) Okay, this kind of touches on something I want to review, but I'll give it to you without context. I've realized that I have, in my mind, a very set picture of what a "bad neighborhood", slum, or "where the poor people live" should look like. And since I've lived in urban eastern Massachusetts my whole life, that picture is: triple deckers interspersed with empty lots filled with weeds and/or trash, lots of heavily-tagged railroad bridges, and mid-to-highrise projects. I can accept a certain amount of deviation--I see the bad, bad parts of Baltimore on The Wire and the fact that it's decrepit rowhouses, not triple deckers, doesn't faze me. But I remember seeing Boyz N the Hood the first time and being very discomforted at a barely conscious level by, "Wait, there's palm trees. And little single family houses. How is *that* the ghetto?" Similarly, in both the recent news (13 y.o dad story) and in some British TV I've been watching (review at some point!), I see the council estates and go, "Huh. Looks kinda not too bad. Looks kinda better than places I've lived. These people are on welfare? Really?" It sort of screws with my expectations.

Okay. That's it for now!

xoxo

in honor of...

You'll notice sometimes we have inadvertent themes here at The Adventures. Careful readers will have also already ascertained what our theme for the last three days has been. And since I'm on a roll, and the blessed, blessed internet has shown fit to shower me with appropriate photos, I'm just gonna go with it.

I've already admitted here, like I admit so very many shameful things, that I have a sneaking fondness for Mr Ice-T, based almost solely on the fact that one of the main characters in my execrable finished novel looks just like him in my head, but certainly not harmed by his episode of MTV Cribs in which he shows off the vending machine he has in his house, because *otherwise* your deadbeat friends would eat all your damn snack food. Yes, I am embarrassed, but I cannot help it--I enjoy Mr Ice-T's existence in the world.

So! In honor of this, and in honor of (apparent) Breast Week here at The Adventures, I give you:


Mr and Mrs Ice-T at Fashion Week!

I'd probably like Mr Ice-T even more, if his taste in women wasn't so...obvious.

xoxo

maken sence, yur doin it rong

I had quite a stressy morning today, some of which we'll go into very shortly, but all's well that ends well, and even in the midst of my stressy morning, I wouldn't say I was thrown into a bad mood or anything. So please do not consider any of the following as bitching, moaning, ranting, or complaining. I'm just, y'know, perplexed by a couple of things.

So, I had to go have my repeat mammogram and an ultrasound today before work. While I was in the waiting area, I was idly perusing a More magazine. More is a publication which "celebrates women over 40." It's actually less idiotic than most women's magazines and is totally worth your time if you're sitting in an overly-cool room in half a johnny, waiting for a radiologist. It has features like real women over 40 modeling bathing suits which, while unlikely to serve as wank material for anyone (unless one of the real women happens to be Phoebe Cates, but we covered that yesterday), is a helpful reminder that most women look more like that than like 103 lb, 6 ft tall, 19 year old Brazilian Sports Illustrated models. Stuff like that.

Anyway, since this is for women over 40, there's a lot of content about the menopause and the perimenopause. So, in today's reading selection, there was an article about not gaining weight in the perimenopause. (It's not a women's magazine without at least one article about weight loss and at least one with really stoopid sex/relationship advice. It's a rule.) The article claimed that in the perimenopause, we all are probably not sleeping as well as we might usually do, so we may well be more fatigued. And our bodies might confuse tiredness with hunger and make us eat more. So, before you eat anything, *make sure* you're actually hungry. Huh? Even if that's true, if you're tired because you aren't sleeping well at night, and you can't do anything much about that because it's hormonal, and taking a two hour nap every day isn't in the ol' sched, and eating makes you feel better and more energetic and able to cope with what you've gotta do, shouldn't you just friggin' EAT already? And if that makes you gain five or ten pounds, then so effin what? Isn't that preferable to being tired and miserable? Not in the world of women's magazines!

Okay, point #2. After rolling my eyes at this article, I went into my ultrasound. Cluster of cysts, blah blah blah, nothing to worry about, blah blah blah, lots of women have this, blah blah blah, don't need a biopsy, blah blah blah, may come and go, blah blah blah, but totally not a concern. So! We'll see you in 6 months for another mammogram! Make the appointment on your way out! Excuse me? If this is absolutely a benign condition, and you say it is, why the fuck exactly are we Xraying my left tit again in six months for shits n' giggles?

Did I make the appointment on my way out? Why, yes, yes I did.

xoxo

look!

It's our friend Phoebe Cates at the Oscars tonight .

I think I'll go to bed now and curse god, or the unfairness of genetics. Something.

xoxo

cardio-related matters

As you might have inferred from my exercise-playlist-making, I've recently started to push myself again on working out. By which I mean, more frequently, more consistently, and harder. I've been particularly inspired to push myself on the cardio, and it's been working: I get about forty minutes into the hour and instead of wanting to die, I'm pretty fucking flooded with endorphins. I used to joke about being endorphin-challenged in relation to other, um, activities that people claimed would kick them in, but either my body has learned to make them better or it's only torture by recumbent bike that they respond to. In any case, score! I've been ending my hour workout sweaty, panting, and grinning all week. It's a nice little high.

I was wondering why, for one thing, after slacking on the workouts all fall and early winter (I blame my ankle sprain, but "laziness" works, too), it's been so relatively easy and painless to ramp the cardio up. And I realized that, with the hormonal mess I've been in for the last six or eight months, and consequently the much less frequent than normal periods I've been having, when I went for my physical last month, it was the first time in lots of years that I haven't been borderline, or actually, anemic. (I had a ferritin level of *4* at one point. And yet no one wanted to investigate why my periods were so heavy. Bastards.) I guess cardio is a lot easier when your body actually has the right amount of hemoglobin. Huh. Go figure.

So, anyway, and this is really weird to me too, several times over the past month when I've just been out walking, weather-permitting, I've had this strange urge to run. (Well, okay, jog. Slowly.) Now, I have never been a runner. I like to say I'm not built for it: big boobs make it uncomfortable physically and, frankly, psychologically. I'm pretty scarred by the crap I had to listen to every time I *tried* to jog when I was a teenager. But, fuck it, sports bra technology has come a long way, they invented the iPod so you don't really need to hear what gets yelled at you from cars anymore, plus I'm old, which cuts down on, if not eliminates, the harrassment. So I'm thinking maybe I *do* want to give into the urge and start running a bit, just as an occasional alternate endorphin-releasing activity. But I need the heavy-duty sports bra and it can't be one of those ones that pull on, because if there is anything more frustrating than trying to get one of those off when you're sweaty, I can't imagine what it might be.

I started perusing them online this evening and it's pissing me off already. Champion, which is probably the biggest maker, apparently doesn't even manufacture them in my size. I cannot understand why the concept of a small woman with large breasts is so hard to fathom. We're not like leprachauns or yeti. We do exist. Then, on Athleta, there are a few bras that actually do come in my size. Some of them have molded cups. WTF? Why would anyone want molded cups in a sports bra? That's bad design right there. The ones that do come in my size, do hook in the back, do have normal underwire, and don't have molded cups range hugely in price. Will the $70 one support me 40% better than the $40 one? Who knows?

I think I'll go look at more and confuse myself further.

xoxo

more movie sociology

I've been re-watching The Apartment, and if it wasn't such a funny movie (along with the sad and romantic parts), I'm telling you, this'd be right up there in the most romantic movie evah rankings. But more about that later. First I'm going to make a couple sociological points.

I found the whole construct of how attempted suicide was looked at/handled in 1960 as opposed to 2009 fascinating. CC Baxter begs his neighbor the doctor not to report Miss Kubelick's attempt, and the doctor "as a friend" relents, but warns that "they usually try it again." Yeah, today we know that when someone makes an attempt or even a gesture or a threat, that they need therapy, probably medication, and very possibly inpatient observation until it's clear they aren't gonna try again. Whereas in 1960, even though apparently medical professionals at the least were aware of that, the risk of getting in trouble, losing your job, being shamed and socially shunned outweighed that. So instead of getting the person actual help, it was "well, okay, we won't put her through *that* but watch her carefully..."

I was also struck on the re-watch, which I hadn't really thought of before, that it was such a crappy crappy thing to do to try to kill yourself in someone else's house. I mean, she didn't know it was Mr Baxter's apartment--it's conceivable that she didn't actually know for sure if *anyone* lived there full time--and she was distraught enough by the realization that the man she loved more or less thought of her as a whore to throw down a half a bottle of sleeping pills, so, y'know, not thinking clearly, but still. Killing yourself in someone else's home=not very nice. (I suppose I should stop here to also register a little disbelief that she didn't know it was Mr Baxter's apartment--in their homes, people usually have junk mail or magazines lying around with their names on them, perhaps a photo or two of themselves, etc, and the movie doesn't make the point that he purposely hid his personal effects when other people were using the apartment. But maybe we're supposed to just assume that? Was there a whole 1960 code of etiquette around such arrangements that I'm woefully unaware of?)

Oh, the other sociological point that killed me! When Mr Baxter asks her out to the theatre and lets on that he already knows where she lives, who she lives with, "her height, weight, and social security number" and what vaccinations and surgeries she's had--because he looked up her medical insurance info at work--we're supposed to find that charming and endearing. From our perspective, of course, it's "ewwww, creepy stalker guy!" at the worst and "oh, that's deeply inappropriate" at the best. Though, I dunno, I hear people still look up deeply personal stuff about people they're thinking of dating on the internet before they do, so maybe this is just *my* boundary, and not y'all's.

Okay! So why's this such a lovely romance? It fits most of my criteria.

Love hurts! Miss Kubelick is suicidal over the dastardly Fred MacMurray, while Mr Baxter, on finding out that Miss Kubelick is MacMurray's phantom mistress, is so distraught, he's getting hammered on Christmas Eve and *almost* randomly sleeping with the jockey's wife (which, yeah, is comedy gold too--"He's 5'2 and 99 lbs. He's like a little Chihuahua!")

Love grows over time! They're "work friends" for ages before they get together, and while he's crushing over her being pretty and bubbly and sassy and friendly, he also likes her. He defends her to the assholes who are all, ooo, what's wrong with her, why doesn't she let anyone get into her pants? with "well, maybe she's just a nice, decent girl!" And even though she's in love with the bad guy, she likes him, too. She notices he's the only one who takes his hat off in her elevator. She implies he's one of the few who isn't rude or skanky to her. There's a basis for them later falling in love.

Devotional quality! This is shown perhaps most clearly by Mr Baxter calling up Fred MacMurray on Christmas Day after Miss Kubelick's suicide attempt and giving *him* the chance to do the right thing...which, of course, he doesn't. Even though Baxter is falling in love with her by then, he knows she loves the other guy, and he's trying to do what he thinks will make *her* the most happy, even though he's screwing himself by possibly getting them back together.

Forgiveness! Mr Baxter, besides not caring that she's tried to kill herself in his bed, also is not judgmental that she's been doing the married guy. He forgives her lapse of judgment and doesn't for a second hold it against her.

Finally, sacrifice! It could be said he throws away his whole bright professional future for her, but--and this is why this not really a "romance" movie per se--the real point of the movie is that falling in love with her is what wakes him up and makes him start behaving like the good person he really is inside, and what makes him realize he's letting himself be crapped on just to get ahead and that isn't the life he wants. The point of the movie is his self-growth (and the satire, of course, about the corporate world that he has to grow against); his love for Miss Kubelick is just the impetus for his change. So, yeah! Not the most romantic movie evah. The search continues. But such a good movie.

xoxo

my ovaries say "hi"

Someone better start working on those step-grandchildren for me stat. I'm just sayin'.

I started my work day out today with a toddler. A toddler whose mom unfortunately had to bring the other two kids--a boy of about 7 and a girl around 3--with her. This is usually a recipe for...well, not disaster, because I am so freakin good at my job, but for a lot more difficulty than might otherwise be. So, the thing is, I need to get these little patients of mine to sleep while I test, which involves a group effort between me and the parent(s). When siblings are along, especially siblings not old enough to be, if not actually helpful, at least quiet and not competing for the parent's attention, things can get sticky. This was compounded in today's circumstances by it being 7:30 in the morning. My last resort--stick the siblings out in the reception area and beg the office staff to entertain them for half an hour--was not available, because well, there's no office staff that early in the am.

So we get the little one set up to test, no longer crying and cuddled in his mom's lap where she's enticing him to take the leche, lights down in the room. I'm at my computer. The older boy is playing fairly quietly on the floor and the little girl comes up to me. She's trying to tell or ask me something, but I can't quite understand her. Partially because I think she's more fluent in Spanish than English, and partly because she's, y'know, just three. So, wanting to keep her from going over to her mom, who *just* has the patient starting to settle and take the bottle, I held out my arms to her. And she climbed right up into my lap.

Her mom and the baby are on video, so I show her on the computer, panning in so she can see their faces, and this fascinates her. And because my computer chair swivels, I start rocking her a little. She puts her little head right down onto my shoulder. OMG. I about died of the sweetness. I swear to you, as god is my witness, I could feel my pituitary gland start pumping out the FSH. "C'mon, Andrea, I'm sure we've got some semi-viable eggs in there!" I hold her like that for twenty minutes, rocking and cuddling and letting her look at what's on my screen, till her mom finally gets the baby off to sleep.

I can't even imagine a nicer way to start my day off. And while I'm well aware that someday that adorable little three year old is gonna be an obnoxious teenager with a nasty mouth on her, giving her mom all kinds of agita (until she turns back into the lovely young woman which I'm also sure she'll be), that's the beauty of being the grandmother, yo. You only have to deal with the best parts. I'm telling my ovaries and empty uterus that right now.

xoxo

and then my reading upsets me

Apparently, according to the interwebs, things have been going on which I would be better off not knowing.

For instance, TMZ, in a feature on celebrity butterfaces, insulted my fantasy boyfriend. Gasp! Look at this face:

Not only is there nothing wrong with that face, 99.9% of the male staff at TMZ--indeed 99.9% of the male population of the world--would be fucking lucky to look that handsome at age 46. (Especially after all the years of, y'know, heroin relapses.) I am aghast.

Secondly? Dr Laura--how the hell is she still alive? and who the hell is still giving her a forum to spew her hateful nonsense?--says women have sex for three, and only three reasons: love, a desperate desire to be loved or wanted, and money. Good to know! That pesky sex drive of mine must mean I'm a dude, then. But, my god, I have breasts. Wha?

Oh, I'm so confused. So confused.

Aghast and confused.

xoxo

several unrelated trivial things

Sadly, I seem to be unable to write about anything of substance this week.

I do, however, wish to inform you all that I prevented it from snowing this morning simply by the act of ordering those Yaktrax, which came in the mail yesterday. See, I am trying so hard to use my powers for good instead of evil.

Also? This morning, upon boarding the prison bus, I was momentarily excited to see a young gentleman, his arm around a chubby but *extremely* pretty young woman, whose jacket, hat, and inked hands put me in mind of Our Boy. Alas, closer inspection proved it to be not Possibly Irish Danny and not proof that he is getting a lil somethin somethin, just an impostor with a similar wardrobe. I should have known, because $20 bill girl was reportedly a blond, and canoodling bus rider girl was a brunette. Though, yes, I know, I know, I should not discount the possibility of our boy being a player. (And, girlfriend in tow or not, it's about time for another sighting, isn't it? I feel like there should be some sort of counter at the top of this blog... "x number of days since the last appearance of Possibly Irish Danny")

Finally, cake is still good. It's always time for CAKE.

xoxo

eagerly ::cough:: awaited updates

1.) I tested out the new playlist and except for one major, major exception--song #13 should really be much earlier on, being not so fast and not so aggressive, though slowing my pace right there did allow me to suck down a whole bunch of water, so that's good--it worked well, even though it's not perfectly ordered.

1b.) It occurs to me that, on paper, Jim Carroll is probably my perfect man: athlete, writer, punk musician, former heroin addict, Irish white trash lapsed Catholic. I'd like to have a few drinks with him. Except I suspect he probably smells like cigarettes and vomit in real life. (People are always better on paper, right?)

2.) Just for Mr Barma (everyone else look away):






xoxo

i need help!

Besides the obvious. (Shut up.)

Here's my question. I made a workout playlist for my iPod today (17 songs, exactly an hour in length) but I'm having a little problem with the ordering. Do you all think that it should start mellower and gradually get faster, or should it start mellower and gradually get more aggressive? I'm ignoring the common wisdom that there should be a cooldown portion, because the last two minutes when my body is telling me, "Andrea, you and I cannot *do* two more minutes of cardio or we will die,"*** can only be overcome by "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate", by Mission of Burma, 2:05 of fast and aggressive perfection, so that has to be the final song on the playlist. That is not a question. If I'm going to cool down rather than just collapse in a sweaty panting heap, the friggin iPod can just cycle back to the beginning, 'k? The whole ordering thing is further confounded by my aesthetic sensibilities that all the hiphop/rap, all the 80's power pop, all the punk, etc, cannot be grouped together, it must be mixed up. Which fucks up ordering either by speed or aggressiveness, I'll have you know.

Gah. If anyone has done this successfully (by which I mean, "in a way that made you happy with your final result") or just has an opinion, could you shoot me some advice?

I leave you with this:

I'm a menace, a dentist, an oral hygienist
Open your mouth for about four or five minutes
Take a little bit of this fluoride rinse
Swish but don't spit it, swallow and I'll finish

Four or five minutes? Ah, boys in their twenties. I remember those days. Heh.

xoxo

***Oh, don't tell me that your body doesn't have third person conversations with you.

drunk dial...er, posting

Be Nice to Andrea Day also involved alcohol. Can I just come out in favor here, publicly, of drinks that have candy in them? Like three kinds of booze + fucking gummy bears. This, my friends, is genius.

Oh. And my feet, they look good. I tried to take a pic and upload it but apparently my camera is low on battery power and I am not going to be arsed to go back downstairs and find new ones. So trust me. Feet=pretty.

Cake is also good.

I think that covers it.

xoxo

true or false!

Dancing Days...best Led Zep song evah? I vote yes! Someone linked to a youtube video of it in a thread I was reading this morning and so naturally I had to go youtube other Led Zep songs I like (like, fer instance, Misty Mountain Hop) as well as the STP cover of Dancing Days, which I also like. I know, I'm not supposed to admit liking STP, but I do, and I wish it were the 90s again so I could listen to "alternative" on the radio and wear stompy shoes and red lipstick. Anyway! I am in a ridiculously cheerful mood and I want to play loud music while I get dressed and dance around. Be glad you do not have to witness this.

I am getting a spendy spa pedicure today, which, I am usually embarrassed to get professional pedicures because my feet are generally a mess from all the walking (and hiking) I do but I read someone on the interwebs expressing the same opinion and a million people who play sports and do martial arts and hike etc etc and also have ugly gross feet from such told her no no no no, do *not* be embarrassed, the more abused your feet are, the more you deserve a pedi. So, encouraged, I booked one. Also because I got my bank statement this week and somehow for reasons that are unclear, even though I paid real estate taxes (ugh!) and the ridiculously high water bill (bastards keep raising the rates, mon) last month/beginning of this month, I ended up with more money in the checking account than I started with. Score! So I must Be Nice to Andrea today.

Excuse me, I must go dance and dress now.

xoxo

electrogirl

Over the past two or three days there have been a plethora of topics I have *almost* blogged about. I'll see, hear, read, or think something, and say to myself, "You gotta blog that!" but by the time I'm in a position to write, the urge is gone. I'm sorta, "Meh. That's not that interesting." So just consider yourselves lucky you have not had to read about Intermission and how it's made me afraid for the future of my dating/sex life, an overheard prison bus conversation that pointed out my own inherent sexism, whether that 13 year old father in Britain (who looks 10 and not pubertal) is a hoax, various fashion and beauty things I've been doing or will be doing to get myself out of these winter doldrums, another example of how the modern Japanese have a scarily warped culture (and this goes way beyond dressing your own cat up in a Hello Kitty costume), the chocolate chip rice crispy treat I bought in the cafeteria yesterday that contained *no* marshmallow and how I should really have gotten my money refunded for that, or how I have had a recurring dream since childhood about a plane dropping out of the sky onto my house.

Instead, I would like to just inform you all that I wore running shoes to work today, which I never do--I have other sneaker-type shoes I sometimes wear, but never these--and how all I have done today because of them is give myself (and a couple of my patients, sadly) static shocks. I am a complete field of electricity. Twice when I went to turn the light switch on in my office when I was done testing, the static shock was so extreme you could see the actual spark in the dark. It's pissing me off greatly, and I don't have any other shoes at work to change into.

Oh, and in other news, today is, as some of you know, my dad's birthday. He made 83. D and I are having a birthday dinner for him tonight with fried clams and chocolate cake, which I offer up as proof that, once again, nutritionists should suck it.

xoxo (and an extra xo for Valentines Day)

competitive sport

So I don't know if you've been hearing this in the news or not, but apparently in our crappy tanking economy, the hospitality industry is happy that Valentines Day falls on a weekend this year, 'cause they're sure this means everybody is going out to dinner Saturday night, and all those expensive restaurants could use a good weekend. Well, if this is in fact true, god bless 'em and I'm happy for them. But can we just pause to consider the *other* wonderful benefit of having Valentines Day on a Saturday?

Now those of you who have never worked in an office or similar environment, particularly a predominantly female one, will not know of which I speak, and those of you who have are probably already nodding in recognition. I give you: Valentines Day as a competitive sport! That is, whose husband/boyfriend/guy who's trying hard to get in her pants "loves" her enough to have flowers sent to her office. Because nothing proves your love better than letting your woman flaunt her superiority over the other bitches she works with, yo! Even if the women you work with aren't *actually* bitches--and I have been very lucky in this regard myself--the ability to quietly gloat over the two dozen overpriced roses at your workstation is without price. So to speak.

Alas, I myself am such a pathetic loser that even when I was married or otherwise in a serious committed monogamous relationship, I have never been with a guy who would think to do such a thing. Therefore I am just as happy to see this holiday fall on a weekend and not have even the possibility of the whole He Loves Me Olympiad occurring in my department. (If your SO sends you flowers to work the day before the actual holiday, it's obvious you're just showing off, so you get points deducted.) Yeah, I know, my entire male readership is now shaking their collective heads and muttering, "Chicks, man. They're so fucking weird." Just consider this a public service announcement about the intricacies of female social groups or something and thank me later! Those jewelry store ads pressuring you to buy ugly, ugly diamond crap if you wanna get laid are just lying to you all.

Oh, and so, what have your past loves given you for this "romantic" holiday, Andrea? you ask. Memorably, in college, my future ex-husband gave me a used TV because my roommates and I didn't have, and couldn't afford, one, on the same Valentines Day that I gave him five pounds of gourmet cashews. One of the roommates who benefited from this gift remarked that there was an inequality in the level of our gifts, but really? It was a second-hand TV and he was working full time, while I was a starving student living on air-popped popcorn, and cashews were expensive. I call it even to this day. I should also mention that *this very week* one of my exes (not the one I was married to, because he doesn't get to know my e-mail address for one thing) sent me a "happy valentines day" with an attached porn clip for old times' sake. Ha! Sadly, I could not open the file.

xoxo

what marcy recommended

Nothing to do with my chi. We were discussing my falling on the ice last week and twisting my ankle the week before and she told me about




She said that, sick of almost killing themselves on crappy, crappy Boston sidewalks, everyone in her office (she shares a suite with a chiropractor and I think a shiatsu person) went down the street to REI (EMS?) one day and bought Yaktrax for like $20. You can put them on over any pair of shoes and they work great! Other than that you need to remember to slip them off when you come inside because if you wear them on tile or some other non-carpeted indoor surface, you *will* fall on your ass. I was like, why have I never heard of this?

So I came home and ordered them off amazon on sale. I realize it's mid-February and so (hopefully!) there are not going to be many more days of climbing over frozen snowbanks this winter, but I'm gonna be ready for next year, I'll tell you what.

xoxo

the black well of negativity

As my acupuncture treatment has gone on and been successful--with the anxiety and mood swings at least, if not in fixing my menstrual cycle and the hormonal crap that's underlying at least some of the mood disorder--we've been able to spread my appointments out. The first couple treatments were a week apart, then two, and now three weeks. I find it kind of interesting that, with tomorrow my first treatment since January 20th, I distinctly felt it "wear off" yesterday.

I know, you're thinking it's just a coincidence, or that I'm psyching myself into it, but I dunno. That moderation of mood disappeared sort of instantaneously and without anticipation. I came home from seeing Coraline Saturday night, and though it wasn't late, 9:30 or so, I'd been up since 5:45, and out of the house since before 7 am, and I was exhausted. So I caught up with what D and my dad had been up to, had some cocoa, and was in bed by 10:30 and slept like a log until the next morning. Woke up in an energetic and generally good mood, had coffee and breakfast and then, suddenly, bam.

Without anything really triggering it--certainly more triggering things had happened last week without significantly affecting my mood--I got thrown into that black pit of anger, disgust, and negativity. I ended up snapping at a friend in email, perhaps deservedly so, but over something I would have just rolled my eyes at and let pass without comment if I wasn't in a crappy, crappy mood. Going for a walk didn't make me feel any better, so I totally blew off all my plans for what I was going to do yesterday in lieu of taking a two hour nap. Because frankly, I didn't want to be conscious.

This morning I got teary over something that was, again, only slightly triggering. Right now all I can think is, Marcy! Fix me!

I suppose I should report back tomorrow night.

xoxo

wrapping up

...some odds and ends

1.) After 3 days of using it, I must say that with my new purse I have indeed hit bag Nirvana. In fact, I think the Buddha himself contemplates my bag when he meditates on the perfection of the universe. Why? Well, besides the beauteous color, we have the fact that it is the perfect size and shape: big enough to put a whole folded newspaper in, yet because it is what is known in the purse biz as an east-west bag (i.e. shallow but long), things do not fall to the bottom, leaving one to rummage endlessly for one's wallet, etc. Also, despite its enveloping size, the buttery soft leather and lack of heavy hardware make it surprising light, lessening my chances of shoulder tendinitis. And best yet? It has outer pockets, oh so many outer pockets. A separate one for my keys and another for my phone and another for my Charlie card and another for my work badge. And an inner one for my iPod. Oh, so much love.

2.) Coraline! Oh, how can you improve on a movie made from a Neil Gaiman book, featuring Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, in 3D? By making the Evil Kitty animated lookalike the hero of the whole shebang, that's how! Oh, so much love. Go see it.

3.) Cheater Cheater A Rod proven to be a cheater. Hahahaha. Ha! And also, oh, so much love.

xoxo

quickee sports thought--addendum

Did you hear that Kelloggs fired Michael Phelps as a result of the whole bong scandal?

This seems awfully short-sighted to me. Do these people not realize how many bowls of their cereal are consumed every single night on college campuses across the land by stoners with the munchies? Way to dis a target market, you morons.

xoxo

Apparently SNL presented this thought better than I:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/really-michael-phelps/999101/

and in other news

http://news.aol.com/article/woman-aims-for-worlds-largest-implants/331011

Do I have to add any comment to this? No, I didn't think so.

xoxo

more romance

I'll take a break from the movie reviews soon, promise. But while I'm on the topic! D rented Say Anything, which I had never seen. Why? I dunno. I knew of it, and the iconic image of John Cusack with the boombox, and you know I like Cameron Crowe, but somehow, I just had never watched it.

Now this is a romantic movie. I'm loathe to give it most romantic movie evah status, probably because the two protagonists are eighteen, and we all know eighteen year old love doesn't last forever. But should we be prejudiced against it because of that? Perhaps not. And I suppose I can take points off for the "love growing slowly" thing, since it happens over the course of one summer, but when you are 18, three or four months is a much larger proportion of your total life than it is when you're 46. I mean, these days I blink and the summer is gone, but the summer between graduating high school and starting college did seem to last forever.

But, c'mon now, anyway, what woman would not want a Lloyd Dobler (even if at my age we are a little skeptical about a man being that mature and decent at age 18), and how can you not root for the love between two people who are just...good...in their intentions towards each other and everyone else? Oh, it warms my cold black heart, and not in any treacly way. It's a sweet story without making the viewer gag on syrup.

As an aside, this movie is from 1989, and Lloyd's little nephew is about three in it, so he's D's age. My warm fuzzies were further provoked by the scenes of him "sparring" with Lloyd, 'cause D at that age would absolutely have been in heaven to do that. It brought back such nice nostalgic memories of having a little boy.*** So I can't totally swear that my favorable review here isn't clouded by that either. The search for the most romantic movie ever continues, but if you're looking for something positive about love because you don't get any Valentines or whatever, I totally recommend renting this.

xoxo

***Speaking of which, this morning D was drinking this Kool-Aid drink in a foil pouch with the little straw and I just looked at him. "Are you *enjoying* drinking out of the juice box?" I asked. "Does it bring back good memories of your childhood or something?" He just gave me the shit-eating grin and nodded. "Yup." I don't care. Next time he puts that in my cart, he's paying for it. That shit's expensive. How'm I supposed to afford costly Chinese-made purses when I'm paying for juice boxes?

i tried to spend money

Really!

I had my Christmas gift cards burning a hole in my...desk...and I really, really need clothes for work, since mostly everything I have is in shreds. (See: previous disgruntled posts about how everything I've bought in the last two to three years has tended to fall apart after ten to twenty washes and sometimes before, no matter what I've paid for it.) So I went shopping today. I went to the giant Macys. I went to the Gap. I went to Banana Republic. I went to Ann Taylor *and* Ann Taylor Loft. I went to JJill. And I went to Anthropologie.

Not only could I not find anything I wanted to buy, I didn't even find anything I wanted to try on. Not on sale. Not at full price. I have never seen such a collection of ugly, hideous garments, store after store, in my life. Oh, there was a bunch of cute Lucky Brand and Free People stuff at Macys, because you know I like that boho yoga-ish crap, but a.) it's probably time for me to give up the idea that I'm not too old for that shit, b.) even with gift cards, there's probably a better use for my money than $70 hoodies and sweatpants with kanji and dragons on them (cutest sweatpants evah, though) and c.) I can't wear that to work anyway, can I? STAY FOCUSED!!!

So instead of buying desperately needed clothes for work, I bought the ::cough:: $200 ::cough:: purse I wanted from Anthropologie. Shut up, it was with gift cards. That's like free money.

Maybe I ought to go over to the darkside and start wearing scrubs.

xoxo

more pissing and moaning

I'm sorry. I hate to carry on with the whining but I am just so fucking discouraged.

This morning? I leave my house bright and early, wearing my snow boots--the expensive Timberland ones that I would be so very happy with except for the fact that they have these straps on them that snap but which never stay snapped and therefore drag on the ground or flap against the boot--thinking to myself as I walk down the sidewalk that I am so very unhappy that just as almost all the snow and ice is gone off the places I need to traverse, it's going to snow again in a few short hours. Look at how nice and clear these sidewalks are now, I think to myself as I turn the corner and start down the hill. Whereupon I hit a patch of black ice and wipe out, skinning both knees, the palm of my right hand and three fingers on the left. A cursory inspection shows me I am bleeding and am not going to magically stop bleeding in the next 7 seconds, so I turn around, go home, wash up and put five bandaides on my various wounds. Then I re-leave for work. And my left boot--the snow boot with the tread on it which you'd think might keep a person from wiping out on the sidewalk--won't stay snapped. I used up my day's total quota of profanity before 7:35 am.

Winter can go away right now. This is the second time in less than two weeks that I've injured myself just trying to get to work in the morning. (I twisted my left ankle--not the right one I'd already sprained last fall and which everyone keeps telling me to be really careful about because it's so easy to re-sprain--climbing over a mound of frozen snow trying to cut through the upper parking lot to get from the street to my building one Saturday, and so now it's a toss-up every morning which ankle is gonna be stiffer when I wake up, the one I badly sprained in the fall or the one I mildly sprained ten days ago.) And this despite wearing the ugly sensible boots/shoes that make me feel so very, very attractive every day.

I can't take it any more. There is no amount of positive thinking that can overcome the fact that this does, in fact, suck. And I'll be shoveling more later. Son of a bitch.

xoxo

another little bit of medical bitching & moaning

I had my routine mammogram last Friday. I kinda skipped a year, and let me tell you why: ever since my very first mammogram at age 39, every single one I've had except one has required a callback for extra films. They're always finding something that turns out to be nothing. I just have those kind of boobs. I'm used to it by now and it doesn't even worry me anymore. But it's...annoying. Inconvenient. And I can't imagine the extra doses of radiation are *good* for my cancer risk, no matter what they say.

The last time, two years ago, when I went back for the re-do, the tech basically told me that the reason the first films showed something and the repeats didn't was that the first tech didn't squish my boobs enough. So Friday I was really tempted to ask/beg/implore the woman to really flatten those suckers, but, y'know, I didn't. So, today at work I went into the computer and looked up my own results, as you do, and I've got a "nodular density" in my left breast and I need to be called in for, yes, more views.

Google tells me that "a mammogram may show nodular density, which means fibrocystic change that usually is benign (i.e., non-cancerous). Mammograms of many women show nodular densities. Although nodular density in a mammogram is not, by itself, a risk factor for breast cancer, the nodular density can make the mammogram more difficult for physicians to read and interpret."

In other words, this is going to, yet again, turn out to be nothing, nothing except more aggravation. (And you'll note they haven't called me yet to tell me any of this or schedule the follow-up.) This is what happens when you try to be a responsible patient and do all these freaking screening tests they want you to do. I just know that poop test is gonna buy me a colonoscopy when I break down and do it.

xoxo

a modern take on infidelity

This weekend I *finally* got around to watching Waitress, which is perhaps most well-known for being the indie film whose director/writer was murdered in her Greenwich Village apartment before the movie ever came out, and which Netflix sent me like a month ago. I'm not sure what exactly made me initially think I wanted to see this and what exactly made me leave it sitting on my kitchen table for four weeks, but be that as it may, now I'm gonna talk about it.

Here's a brief synopsis with spoilers. (If you think you're ever going to watch this movie and want to be surprised about what happens, don't read this, and if you do, don't come whining to me.) This movie is about a diner waitress in an unhappy, abusive marriage whose only joy is baking fanciful and delicious pies for herself and for the diner. She unexpectedly becomes pregnant which she is *not* happy about--one of her pies is called "I don't want to have Earl's baby pie"--particularly since it's screwing up her plans to take the money she's been saving behind her husband's back and secreting about the house and escape to a new life. She spontaneously begins a very inappropriate affair with her ob-gyn, who is also married. As her pregnancy continues, events conspire against her ever getting out, until the day her doctor/lover tells her to go outside his office and wait for him, and maybe they'll just take off together, but in any case they'll figure something out. While waiting for him, her water breaks. She goes to the hospital to deliver and the crotchy old rich guy who owns the diner (Andy Griffith! inspired casting!) who's in for surgery, stops by to give her a card. Meanwhile, she meets her ob/lover's wife who's a resident at the hospital. She delivers her daughter, takes one look at her and falls in love with her, and tells her husband unceremoniously to take a hike. The card from the old dude proves to have a nice big check in it so's she can start her own pie shop. She breaks it off with the doc, telling him she could see his wife loves and trusts him, and in montage lives happily ever after with her kiddo and her new business (with a little help from her diner friends.) The end.

Okay. I had some problems with the characterization of her husband. On the one hand, he's a whiny, needy, clingy sort--for instance, his first reaction to learning of her pregnancy is to worry she's gonna love the baby more than him (he's also very stupid, not to have twigged by that point that she hates his guts). On the other hand, he's an overtly controlling, abusive sort--takes her pay from her and won't let her have any money or a car, won't let her go anywhere, hits her (you *know* we get a scene of that, so that we sympathize with her infidelity.) Now I personally have know whiny, needy, clingy guys and I've know overtly abusive guys, but you don't usually see that all together in one package. He's portrayed such that you just know if she hit him back or just stood up to him and said, look, you act like that again and I'm never gonna love you, he'd just crumble. And in fact, more or less does, because when she leaves him in the end, he's not shown putting up any kind of real fight. So, to me, the whole premise of her being so afraid of him and unable to leave is bogus. His character is just written to be maximally unpleasant with every bad trait you've ever seen in a man wrapped up into one, and that's just stacking the deck, n'est pas?

Now, her lover/doctor? The only explanation for him falling head over heels for her and behaving in what is the most egregiously inappropriate manner--I mean, you just don't start making out with your patients, you just don't--is that she reminds him of some diner waitress he had a crush on when he was a kid. That's the sole reason for him risking his marriage and career. Oh, yeah, there's some bullshit about her making him feel peaceful and stuff, but that's only after they're immersed in it. When we meet his wife at the end of the movie, she's pretty and kind and competent. But he's perfectly willing to carry on the affair until Keri Russell tells him no more.

Are you starting to grasp what this movie is really about? Women are good; men are bad, or at least childish and unable to resist their whims without a woman to set them straight. It's okay to cheat if your husband is bad. It's not okay to cheat once you meet your lover's wife and find out she's a nice lady, because sisterhood comes before guys. (There's another example of this in the movie: Keri's friend, a forty-something waitress in the diner, is screwing around with their boss, the cranky short order cook/manager. She's married to a much older guy who is, at this point, "a drooling vegetable." Her friends chide her about the affair when they find out, because they know their boss's wife and she's a nice lady.) I find this take on marital unfaithfulness interesting and telling. Cheating isn't wrong, per se, it's only wrong if you're hurting someone who doesn't deserve to be hurt. And if you're a woman, it's especially wrong if you're hurting another woman. Because men come and go, but women need to stick together.

Societally, that's very new millennium, isn't it? In An Affair to Remember, you certainly don't see Deborah Kerr wasting any energy thinking about how devastated Cary Grant's fiance is gonna be when he dumps her.

xoxo